Illinois woman recreates history with a flock of specialty sheep breeds

Hilary Matheson

Sunday

Dec 28, 2008 at 12:01 AMDec 28, 2008 at 12:18 AM

In addition to being a volunteer and historical reenactor, Suzy Beggin Craft is also a shepherdess. She has kept sheep for approximately eight years.

In addition to being a volunteer and historical reenactor, Suzy Beggin Craft is also a shepherdess. She has kept sheep for approximately eight years.

Interested in 19th-century history, Suzy strives for historical accuracy in everything she does pertaining to the period. Suzy entered the sheep business when she learned to knit using 19th-century patterns. Then, to be accurate, she wanted 100 percent wool yarn from sheep breeds popular to the period.

At her barn in Stockton, Simon, a large llama with shaggy hair the color of burnt sienna trots over with a look demanding to know who is on the premises and why. Suzy bought a llama to her farm when she found two sheep killed by coyotes within weeks of each other.

“The three things you can do against coyotes is – get a dog, get a donkey, or get a llama. The llama eats the same food he gets the same care. They’re really easy to take care of,” Suzy said as she pulled a piece of hay hanging from the side of his mouth.

Natural instincts

Simon steps back once he knows there are no coyotes. If there were coyotes, Simon’s job would be to round up the sheep, herd them into the barn and keep a lookout. He watches over 23 sheep, cross breeds of Cheviot, Merino, American Cormo, Dorset and East Friesian. Each have names based on characteristics that set them apart. One sheep, Bear, stands by a corner wall by herself. She’s named Bear because of her unusual yellow eyes – like a Teddy Bear’s – and stocky body, tricolored wool and woolly face. Suzy also refers to her as Independent Woman.

“Bear has no flocking instinct. They’re supposed to all stay together and she doesn’t,” Suzy said.

Suzy dips a bucket into a metal container filled with pellets, a sweet treat for the sheep. Once one sheep realize she has pellets, they huddle around her, their thick coats of wool acting like buffers as they push past each other like bumper cars. Ewella and Lambert are the first to dip their face into the bucket. Both were Suzy’s first sheep. She tosses the pellets that cannot reach into a trough. The sheep bolt toward the trough. Sheep in the back clamor for whatever it is the other sheep want. One sheep jumps up onto the trough and looks for a spot over the heads lowered in the trough.

“They have such a herding instinct. They don’t even know what it is, but they see that ‘Oh, these guys want some so it must be good,’” she said.

For someone who previously had only fish and gerbils for pets, Suzy is at ease handling and taking care of her sheep.

“As far as livestock go, sheep are easy to care for,” she said. “So much history involves farming. Part of the reason I raise them 19th century farming is I don’t know that much about modern farming.”

In the wintertime she feeds them hay and checks that their water does not freeze. In the summer, they graze.

The Process

The “spokes-lamb” of the flock is Fred. Fred travels with Suzy in a large dog crate to craft shows and historical reenactments so customers can see where their wool comes from. Hand-raised and bottle-fed because his mother rejected him, Fred became comfortable around people. Suzy said mothering is an instinct that some sheep do not have.

Recently Suzy, her spinning wheel and Fred stopped at One More Row in Freeport to show the beginning – Fred growing the wool – the middle – Suzy spinning the wool – and the end product – a knit sweater.

“Children are removed from the process they don’t know where they’re clothes come from they just arrive at Wal-Mart,” she said.

Not such an itchy subject

The different breeds of sheep have different wool characteristics.

“The merinos have a greasier wool,” Suzy said pointing to a Merino sheep. “That’s part of the reason their wool is so soft. It’s like if you had hair conditioner on all the time.”

There are a couple of reasons why some wool is coarse and itchy – breed and how often they are sheared. Since sheep are mainly raised for meat in America, the quality of wool is typically not important. Another reason is that some sheep are sheared more than once a year to make more profit.

When sheep are sheared multiple times a year, the wool doesn’t have time to grow, leading to shorter fibers that may stick out and cause itchiness. Suzy said this is why she breeds her sheep for fine wool quality and shears them only once a year. Quality wool is soft, warm and absorbent. Wool garments can be hand washed or put in the washing machine on the spin cycle only and air dried.

Inside her house Suzy takes off her knit hat and wraps a scarf around her hair. She sits down in an antique wooden chair at her spinning wheel and begins to feed wool fibers into it as she taps a treadle. When pressed, the treadle sets the wheel in motion. A driving band is wrapped around the wheel and moves a large bobbin, which the fiber is spun around into yarn. The fiber does not go around the wheel as people assume.

Spinning yarn

Over the whir of the wheel and clack of the treadle she talks about her love of spinning wool. Her wheel is reminiscent of fairy tales of “Sleeping Beauty” and “Rumpelstiltskin.”

“This (wheel) is similar to the type Rumpelstiltskin would have had. He spun straw into gold and a little wheel like this is usually used for flax,” she said.

“Flax looks like straw. When you spin it, it becomes linen and linen still expensive now, was very, very, expensive long ago, and so the story of Rumpelstiltskin spinning straw into gold was probably spinning flax into linen, which sold for gold,” she said.

Suzy said any fiber can be spun with a wheel.

“I have a friend who once spun dryer lint just to prove it could be done and it can,” she said.
The wool she sells she sends out in bulk to be spun.

“My hand spun I don’t sell at all because it’s too precious,” she said.

Sold in skeins, her wool is available online at SuzyBeggin.com.

The Journal-Standard

Never miss a story

Choose the plan that's right for you.
Digital access or digital and print delivery.